The Present Disclosure relates generally to the field of electrical connectors. In particular, the Present Disclosure relates to multi-conductor shielded and unshielded electrical connectors used in cable harnesses.
Today, traditional wire harness manufacturing presents a plurality of “single wires” terminated to a terminal. As is best illustrated in FIG. 1, a plurality of such single terminated wires are arranged and combined to form a bundled wire harness. In many instances, certain applications require high data rate transfer and use of a balanced, or impedance tuned, differential pair transmission link.
Currently, as best illustrated in FIGS. 2-4, in the single wire approach, a plurality of single terminated lead wires (in the example shown in the Figures, a pair) are inserted and retained within a connector housing, in adjacent terminal retention cavities. The pair of terminated wires are then twisted, creating a twisted differential pair. After this, the free ends of the twisted differential pair are then inserted and retained in the second connector in the same manner, completing this portion of the cable harness.
This approach is seen today with High Speed Controller Area Network and FlexRay technologies, which is labor intensive, as the twisting of the wire is performed after assembly into the connector cavity body and done so with inconsistent twist rate control which affect, inter alia, impedance control and, thereby, performance for higher speed technologies such as Ethernet or LVDS (Low Voltage Differential Signaling). To further complicate the assembly, each pair of terminals must be attached to the wire leads at both ends before the twist occurs, resulting in the potential imbalance of terminal presentation at the second (final) end of the twisted wire length prior to insertion in the connector. Either an untwisted length is required to allow each terminal to fit within its respective cavity, or the two terminals must be inserted at the same time (as a pair) to minimize this untwisted effect caused by the nature of the insertion process in traditional wire harness manufacturing.
In certain applications, further requirements such as moisture and debris prevention, the addition of seals further complicates this assembly and creates added difficulty in maintaining consistency, resulting in decreased assembly efficiency.